Recovering Alcoholics Claim Exxon Discriminates

Reynolds Holding, Chronicle Legal Affairs Writer

Published
4:00 am PDT, Friday, July 14, 1995

An oil-refinery technician and a former sailor for Exxon have sued the oil giant in San Francisco for denying them dangerous jobs because they are recovering alcoholics, even though they have been clean and sober for years.

Allen Hartman had sailed on Exxon's East Bay tugs for three years when he was denied a promotion for attending Alcoholics Anonymous, according to the suit filed in U.S. District Court. Alfred Trott had overcome his alcoholism with help from an Exxon program, but when a supervisor in a refinery control room found out about the problem, Trott was transferred to a less desirable job.

Their lawsuit, filed last week, underscores a dilemma for many employers: Federal law clearly bars discrimination against alcoholics who can do their jobs, but companies such as Exxon -- whose infamous tanker crashed in 1989 near Port Valdez, Alaska, while the captain was drunk -- fear putting even recovering alcoholics in high- risk positions.

In this case, Hartman claims, the company went too far.

"I don't think anybody should have to go through what I went through with Exxon," he said. "What they did to me is wrong. It's immoral and it's illegal."

Hartman and Trott are suing on behalf of the more than 100 Exxon workers or applicants who have allegedly suffered discrimination because of past substance abuse.

They want the court to declare Exxon's substance abuse policy illegal, bar its enforcement and award damages to compensate the victims and punish the company. Their claims are made under the 3-year-old Americans With Disabilities Act and the state Fair Employment and Housing Act, which have similar provisions against employment discrimination.

The object of their wrath is Exxon's so-called Never-Ever policy. It excludes from "designated positions" -- ship captain, truck driver or gas-line operator, for example -- any worker "who has had or is found to have a substance abuse problem."

Exxon spokesman Tom Cirigliano says the policy was adopted in September 1989 to conform with "changing societal expectations and social norms" after the U.S. Supreme Court approved random drug testing. But an August 1989 letter to Exxon Shipping Co. officers from the company's human resources manager mentions "the Exxon Valdez incident" as a major reason.

On March 24, 1989, the tanker ran aground in Prince William Sound, spilling almost 11 million gallons of crude oil. The ship's captain, Joseph Hazelwood, had been drinking heavily in the afternoon before the disaster.

Asked to justify the policy, Cirigliano said, "The catastrophic potential of some of these jobs just simply doesn't permit you to take a chance today."

But San Francisco attorney Marcie Berman points out that unlike Hartman and her other clients, "Hazelwood was not rehabilitated." And Hartman argues that recovering alcoholics present far less of a risk than "normies," as he calls nonalcoholics.

"I've worked on a lot of boats, and I saw normal people come back sloshed more times than anyone in A. A.," he says. "When a boat got into port, alcoholics went right to an A. A. meeting."

These and other arguments have been persuasive in several legal challenges.

For example, a ship captain who had been clean and sober for years sued Exxon in Maine after it tried to transfer him because of his past troubles. In 1992, a federal jury awarded him about $700,000.